“Florence, you have the power to wound me, be forbearing in its exercise. Heaven knows that I would not, from the vain desire of showing command over you, inflict upon you a single pang. Ah! do not fancy that in lovers’ quarrels there is any sweetness that compensates the sting.” “I told you I was too exacting, Ernest. I told you you would not love me so well when you knew me better.” “And were a false prophetess. Florence, every day, every hour I love you more--better than I once thought I could.” “Then,” cried this wayward girl, anxious to pain herself, “then once you did not love me?” “Florence, I will be candid--I did not. You are now rapidly obtaining an empire over me, greater than my reason should allow. But, beware: if my love be really a possession you desire,--beware how you arm my reason against you. Florence, I am a proud man. My very consciousness of the more splendid alliances you could form renders me less humble a lover than you might find in others. I were not worthy of you if I were not tenacious of my self-respect.” “Ah!” said Florence, to whose heart these words went home, “forgive me but this once. I shall not forgive myself so soon.” And Ernest drew her to his heart, and felt that, with all her faults, a woman whom he feared he could not render as happy as her sacrifices to him deserved was becoming very dear to him. In his heart he knew that she was not formed to render him happy; but that was not his thought, his fear. Her love had rooted out all thought of self from that generous breast. His only anxiety was to requite her. They walked along the sward, silent, thoughtful; and Florence melancholy, yet blessed. “That serene heaven, those lovely stars,” said Maltravers at last, “do they not preach to us the Philosophy of Peace? Do they not tell us how much of calm belongs to the dignity of man, and the sublime essence of the soul. Petty distractions and self-wrought cares are not congenial to our real nature; their very disturbance is a proof that they are at war with our natures. Ah, sweet Florence, let us learn from yon skies, over which, in the faith of the poets of old, brooded the wings of primaeval and serenest Love, what earthly love should be,--a thing pure as light, and peaceful as immortality, watching over the stormy world, that it shall survive, and high above the clouds and vapours that roll below. Let little minds introduce into the holiest of affections all the bitterness and tumult of common life! Let us love as beings who will one day be inhabitants of the stars!” CHAPTER IV. “A slippery and subtle knave; a finder out of occasions, that has an eye can stamp and counterfeit advantages.”--_Othello_. “Knavery’s plain face is never seen till used.”--_Ibid._ “You see, my dear Lumley,” said Lord Saxingham, as the next day the two kinsmen were on their way to London in the earl’s chariot, “you see that at the best this marriage of Flory’s is a cursed bore.”